1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the design of transmission systems, and, in particular, to the provision of redundant clock signals for fault protection.
2. Description of the Related Art
Transmission systems rely on clock signals to control the operations of the processors and other hardware components that make up the transmission system. In order to maintain system operations in the event of a failure or other degradation in a particular clock signal, transmission systems are often designed with one or more redundant or backup clock signals that can take over the responsibility for controlling system operations from the failed clock signal.
It is desirable to provide a clock-signal switch protection scheme for automatically switching from a failed clock signal to a backup clock signal without interrupting system operations. Such switching is referred to as hitless switching.